Air Force: It’s time to pull the plug on JSTARS; Congress: Not so fast

[Elderberry]

Space News by Sandra Erwin — March 31, 2018

U.S. Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson calls it a “bold move”: cancel a $6.5 billion purchase of high-tech ground surveillance aircraft and shift that mission to a network dubbed “advanced battle management system.”

The argument the Air Force makes in its 2019 budget request for not buying new aircraft to replace the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or JSTARS, is rather straightforward. It can’t survive modern air defenses.

The Air Force in 2011 started a five-year study that looked at options for replacing the aging fleet of 17 airliner-size JSTARS. Up until a year ago, it was moving down the conventional path of selecting a new airplane to take over when the current fleet is taken out of service in 2024.

At some point during this period of analysis, the realization set in that a new JSTARS would be useless in conflicts against adversaries that have advanced air defenses.

More: http://spacenews.com/air-force-its-time-to-pull-the-plug-on-jstars-congress-not-so-fast/